THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


THE  COLLECTION  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINMNA 

PRESENTED  BY 

J.  G.  de  R.  Hamilton 


G378 

UK3 

1891P 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00037546815 


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NORTH  CAROLINA 

UNIVERSITY    MAGAZINE. 

Old  Series  Vol.  XXII.         No.  2.  New  Series  Vol.  XI. 

EDITORS: 

PHI.  ,  DI. 

George  W.  Connor,  W.  E.  Rollins, 

C.  F.  Harvey.  E.  Payson  Willard. 

Howard  E.  Rondthaler,  ]  t>     •  th- 

W.  E.  Darden;  I  ^"siness  Managers. 

Published  six  times  a  year  under  the  auspices  of  the  Philanthropic  and 
Dialetic  Societies.     Subscription,  $1.00.     Single  copy,  20  cents. 

Entered  at  the  Post  Office  of  Chapel  Hill  as  second  class  matter. 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  INAUGURATION  OF  PRESI- 
DENT WINSTON. 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

(We  reproduce  from  the  State  Chronicle  of  Oct.  20,  Mr.  Page's  speech, 
the  sentiments  of  which  should  inspire  new  zeal  into  eveiy  student  and 
Alumnus  of  the  University  for  oiiginal  study  in  the  solution  of  the  Race- 
Problem. 

We  note  here  with  pleasure,  that  the  Societies  have  begun  to  take  the 
matter  in  hand,  having  appointed  a  comniittee  to  confer  with  the  Faculty 
in  regard  to  the  furtherance  of  Mr.  Page's  suggestion,  and  we  hope  soon 
to  see  the  plan  take  on  a  definite  course,  for  in  no  way  could  the  Univer- 
sity of  North  Carolina  be  better  brought  before  the  people  of  the  United 
States  than  by  this. — Ed.) 

Mr.  President  : — I  greet  you  with  the  earnest  congratulations 
that  befit  the  taking  on  of  a  clear  duty  which  leads  to  a  high 
opportunity. 

For  it  is  much  to  have  one's  duty  clear;  to  have  a  clear  duty 
that  brings  a  high  opportunity  is  all  we  can  ask  the  gods  to  give. 

In  a  time  when  perplexities  hedge  men  of  energy  and  the 
right  way  is  often  hidden  by  the  number  of  roads  that  lead  to 


62       INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIBENT  WINSTON. 

places  of  rest  or  to  eminences  of  honorable  toil,  to  you  the  way  is 
straight.  By  the  gentlest  change  the  dignity  of  the  past  now 
takes  on  energy  for  the  future.  To  the  headship  of  this  venerated 
institution,  we  that  live  on  hope  and  not  on  memories,  welcome 
you,  pledging  what  help  we  can  give,  and,  as  workers  in  other 
ways,  the  cheer  of  most  loyal  comradeship. 

And  this  hour  of  your  consecration  is  a  time  to  us  of  solemn 
joy.  The  hopes  we  build  are  high,  for  as  wo  read  our  calendar  it 
is  a  day  of  broadening  opportunity.  In  our  gentle  contention  with 
them  that  have  sat  in  the  way  of  progress  all  that  we  have  ever 
asked  is  opportunity. 

And  we  are  glad  that  it  is  you  that  have  inherited  this  high 
trust;  for,  deep-rooted  in  the  past  and  clothed  with  our  best  tradi- 
tions, you  have  kept  pace  to  the  quickened  step  of  a  new  era.  1 
greet  you  holding  the  hope  of  our  most  venerable  institution  just 
when  our  life  swings  forward  into  a  larger  day. 

And  the  gentleness  with  which  great  changes  come  and  the 
old  times  blossom  into  new  is  a  rebuke  to  our  impatience ;  for  how 
gently  this  movement  forward  has  been  taken  ! 

I  see  such  changes  even  between  my  visits  here,  that  the  men 
who  die  between  times  seem  at  once  to  become  part  of  a  long-past 
epoch  It  was  only  the  other  day  for  instance  that  we  had  the 
good  fortune  (and  it  was  an  education  in  nobility  and  gentleness) — 
to  have  Professor  Hooper  here — the  bearer  of  her  stateliest  pres- 
ence that  ever  clothed  the  form  of  man.  And  of  all  the  fine  sights 
of  enthusiasm  in  the  world  there  never  was  a  finer  than  that  we 
saw  here  for  so  many  years — until  just  now — when  Mr.  Paul  Cam- 
eron, on  commencement  day  rose  from  his  seat  and  very  slowly, 
marched  upon  this  rostrum,  when  the  company  began  to  sing  the 
"Old  North  State."  "Give  me  my  hat,"  he  said,  and  when  some 
one  gave  it  to  him,  with  a  flush  on  his  ruddy  countenance  as  beau- 
tiful as  the  rosy  cheeks  of  childhood  and  his  gray  hair  flowing,  he 
waved  the  hat  above  his  head  and  cried  out :  "Hurrah  !"  "Hurrah !" 
You  will  never  see  a  more  spontaneous  enthusiasm  than  that,  nor 
a  sight  that  you  will  remember  longer. 

The  very  mention  of  only  these  two  honored  and  honorable 
men    brings   a    different   atmosphere  from  the   atmosphere   you 


f! 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  WINSTON.      63 

breathe  here  now-an  air  laden  with  the  perfume  of  a  perfect  cul- 
ture of  its  kind,  that  comes  now  as  across  the  years  in  lonely  hours 
comes  the  memory  of  our  childhood.  Yet  the  feet  of  these  gentle 
and  noble  men  have  just  now  ceased  to  come  and  go  with  us ; 
and  I  am  sure  that  their  benediction  rests  on  us.  It  would  be  a 
pleasure  to-day  to  assure  them  that  their  memory  is  held  dear  and 
their  characters  shall  guide  us  and  their  manners  be  our  manners 
in  the  broader  way  that  opens  to  us. 

And  for  this  broader  way  it  is  a  memorable  privilege  to  be 
able  to  thank  the  clean  hands  and  the  noble  aims  of  your  prede- 
cessor; for  he  it  was  that  reconstructed  the  University  when  the 
mad  revolutionists  that  desecrated  it  were  driven  from  it  as  the 
money  changers  were  driven  from  the  temple.  In  a  period  of  des- 
olation it  was  he  who  brought  back  again  the  fine  spirit  of  the  old 
times;  and  he  will  live  as  the  preserver  and  the  transmitter  of  our 
best  traditions.  Him,  too,  we  honor  and  love,  honoring  ourselves 
thereby.  For  in  our  annals  his  name  is  safe,  and  he  has  passed 
into  our  history  before  he  is  taken  from  our  thankful  companion- 
ship. The  opportunity  that  came  in  storm  to  him,  in  calm  he  has 
broadened  and  transmitted  to  you.  Thankfully  remember,  for  all 
men  will  remember,  that  much  of  the  reward  that  you  will  reap 
is  of  labor  of  his  doing.  You  have  a  high  place,  made  higher  by 
his  bearing  in  it. 

But  this  would  be  an  hour  of  only  idle  compliment — unworthy 
of  your  purpose  and  of  our  solemn  jubilation,  if  we  forgot  the 
breadth  of  that  opportunity  or  failed  to  hold  up  a  measure  of  it 
to-day. 

It  were  an  event  of  little  consequence  if  this  change  of  Presi- 
dents did  not  bring  a  change  of  meaning.  The  retirement  of  a 
veteran  to  make  place  for  a  recruit  is  not  an  event  worthy  of  cele- 
bration; that  were  merely  the  even  flow  of  things  as  men  grow  up 
and  grow  old.  But  this  change  is  more  than  that,  and  in  coming 
to  your  christening  we  think  we  come  to  celebrate  the  intellectual 
awakening  of  the  people. 

For  the  one  fact  that  it  is  now  our  duty  to  insist  on  as  you 
take  this  high  trust  and  we  charge  you  to  remember,  is  that  this 
is  the  people's  institution.  Settle  all  mortgages  to-day  that  all 
classes  and  sections  of  society  have  on  you.     Eenounce  forever 


64      INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  WINSTON. 

servitude  to  ecclesiastism  and  partyism  and  set  out  to  be  the  rul- 
ing and  the  shaping  force  among  the  energies  that  stir  the  people 
and  are  making  of  our  old  fields  a  new  earth,  of  our  long  slumber- 
ing land  a  resounding  workshop. 

Remembering  that  this  is  the  people's  institution,  look  with 
me  for  a  moment  over  the  commonwealth,  and  we  shall  see  the 
most  interesting  social  problem  on  the  continent. 

These  people  sprung  of  hardy  stock,  living  out  of  the  currents 
of  the  world's  activity,  nurtured  in  the  simple  creed  of  frugality 
and  reverence  in  a  land  where  living  is  easy,  have  inherited  a  tra- 
dition that  somehow  education  is  a  thing  for  a  particular  class;  and 
here,  by  a  strange  absence  of  events  and  by  the  accident  of  location, 
is  one  of  the  very  sturdiest  communities  of  the  whole  English  race 
yet  in  the  crude  stage  of  development  of  a  preceding  century.  On 
the  hills  alike  of  the  Catawba  and  of  the  Eoanoke  a  hundred  years 
ao-o  men  followed  plows  of  the  Homeric  fashion  drawn  by  bullocks 
to  make  shallow  furrows  in  little  fields  of  new  ground  to  grow 
little  stores  of  corn.  To-day  alike  on  the  hills  of  the  Roanoke  and 
of  the  Catawba  you  may  see  men  following  plows  of  Homeric 
fashion  drawn  by  bullocks  to  make  shallow  furrows  in  little  fields 
of  new  ground  (now  made  new  for  the  second  time)  to  grow  the 
same  little  stores  of  corn.  Meantime  their  kinsmen;  men  of  Eng- 
lish stock,  no  whit  more  capable  than  they,  have  brought  three 
continents  under  their  sway  and  the  rise  of  science  has  made  new 
the  intellectual  life  of  men.  Here  alone,  alike  on  the  banks  of  the 
Roanoke  and  of  the  Catawba  great  change  has  come  not  and  the 
creeds  of  a  century  ago  have  not  flowed  into  wider  channels. 

What  a  proof  of  the  power  of  a  hindering  tradition  !  Any 
other  race  would  have  lost  its  capacity.  And  what  a  tribute  this 
is  to  the  fibre  of  our  stock !  For  the  people  of  North  Carolina 
have  not  lost  their  capacity.  Whenever  an  event  of  the  outside 
world  has  broken  through  our  barriers  of  State  pride,  they  have 
shown  themselves  capable,  as  for  example,  in  our  civil  war.  In 
that  stirring  time  there  were  uncommon  men  developed.  They 
went  forth  showing  endurance  and  courage  even  when  it  was 
folly  to  be  brave. 

Of  the  influences  that  have  chained  them,  one  was  slavery, 
the  shadow  of  which  falls  long  and  lingers  heavy  yet ;  another  was 


INA  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  WINSTON.       65 

a  pioneer  church  that  hardened  its  emotional  creed  into  an  ada- 
mantine intolerance  which  fashioned  for  docile  necks  the  yoke  of 
petty  ecclesiasticism,  whose  halter  spared  not  this  institution 
itself;  worse  than  all  was  a  subtle  social  creed  growing  out  of  these 
things  that  suppressed  individual  effort.  I  recall  now  how  greatly 
I  suffered  in  my  own  childhood  because  at  our  foremost  school  (it 
was  then  just  over  the  hills  here)  the  boys  rated  one  another 
according  to  the  military  prominence  of  their  fathers,  and  my 
father  was  so  unthoughtful  as  not  to  be  even  a  colonel. 

Under  these  influences  the  people  have  slumbered  long,  and 
have  been  the  prey  of  small  agitations  (see  how,  for  example,  they 
lie  bound  by  the  straw  of  a  Farmers'  Alliance,  led  by  them  of  the 
long  beards,  to  whose  dominating  delusion  our  greatest  and 
broadest  and  most  honored  and  best  beloved  public  servant  paid 
the  homage  of  surrender). 

Now,  not  in  a  8piritofblame(forwho  shall  say  who  is  to  blame?) 
it  becomes  us  to-day  to  see  the  truth — that  during  this  slumber  of 
the  people  this  institution  did  not  touch  them.  This  institution 
was  little  more  than  the  conservator  of  our  best  traditions,  an 
asylum  where  the  sons  of  gentle  nature  in  a  rough-time  might 
breathe  the  air  of  a  preceding  era  and  become  the  contemporaries 
of  their  grand-fathers  when  their  grand-fathers  themselves  were 
youths ;  where  they  sat  down  with  their  ancestors  on  the  easy 
terms  of  comradeship  in  years,  manners,  doctrines  and  ideals,  and 
danced  (when  the  preachers  allowed  it)  with  their  own  grand- 
mothers in  their  maidenhood. 

The  strongest  men,  as  a  rule,  have  not  been  the  men  of  your 
moulding.  In  every  part  of  the  commonwealth  youth  have  gone 
forth  to  be  shepherds  of  millions  and  leaders  of  men,  whose  hands 
are  felt  on  the  markets  of  the  world  and  who  are  among  the  fore- 
most commercial  minds  in  a  commercial  era.  Yet  they  never  felt 
the  moulding  touch  of  your  hands  in  their  youth  and  in  their  man- 
hood many  of  them  are  denied  the  power  of  repose  and  do  not 
know  the  precious  secret  of  refreshing  themselves  with  the  poets, 
or  of  finding  calm  in  the  classics.  Yet  if  our  University  had 
touched  (could  have  touched)  the  people  it  would  have  touched 
such  men,  and  to  have  fashioned  them  would  have  glorified  the 


66       INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  WINSTON 

University  as  its  traditions,  noble  in    spite  of  narrowness,    have 
sanctfied  it. 

But  the  long,  slumbering  people  are  now  waking,  for  a  new 
influence  has  touched  them.  The  love  of  gain  has  never  failed  as 
a  goad,  and  it  is  not  failing  now.  It  is  calling  into  activity  all  the 
dormant  powers  of  the  people.  In  old  fields  where  time  had  hardly 
smoothed  the  furrows  of  slave  plowmen,  we  have  seen  great  facto- 
ries rise ;  our  people  are  becoming  the  builders  of  cities,  the  loaders 
of  industry,  the  architects  of  fortunes.  We  are  even  told,  on  good 
authority,  that  within  an  area  that  has  our  mountains  for  its 
centre  and  this  village  on  its  outskirts,  the  coming  masters  of  the 
markets  of  the  world  will  live  and  work.  So  a  new  force  is  already 
come — a  force  that  sets  little  store  by  ecclesiastical  or  social  habits 
and  that  will  soon  mould  a  people  of  money  makers  and  this 
change  brings  your  change. 

The  University  in  its  new  era  must  become  a  force  alongside 
this  new  force — a  dominating  influence  over  it.  For  you  know 
this  sacred  truth — that  the  race  for  wealth  leaves  the  runners 
exhausted  ;  and  men  get  punier  as  they  grow  richer. 

What  is  the  proper  measure  of  this  new  awakening?  The 
measure  of  the  men  it  produces,  and  this  only.  It  is  not  the 
measure  of  the  wealth  produced.  Neither  here  nor  elsewhere  in 
this  time  nor  ever  is  the  value  of  industrial  life  the  sum  total  of  its 
concrete  product,  but  only  and  always  the  sum  total  of  its  man- 
hood. 

And  it  is  to  you,  and  to  you  chiefly,  indeed  to  you  only,  that 
we  have  to  look  for  the  proper  guidance  of  this  new  power.  To 
the  church  we  cannot  look,  for  seldom  has  ecclesiasticism  wisely 
directed  wealth  towards  a  broad  development.  While  we  are  poor 
we  starve  the  church  into  mendicancy  ;  when  we  get  rich  it  is 
unreasonable  to  expect  it  to  show  independence. 

Neither  can  we  look  to  politics  properly  to  direct  our  new 
industrial  energy.  Politics  too  clearly  and  surely  profits  by 
wealth  and  even  by  the  prostitution  of  wealth  for  us  to  expect  the 
wisest  training  of  it.     So,  too,  of  the  press. 

Now  when  this  gigantic  energy  is  newly  released  it  brings  a 
necessity,  such  a  necessity  as  did  not  exist  even  in  a  period  of 
inertia,  for  a  broad  balancing  force  ;  and  if  you  look  for  such  a 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  WINSTON.       67 

force  will  find  it  only  here — here  where  our  high  ti-aditions  of  a 
manly  era  centre,  among  which  is  the  tradition  that  a  true  inde- 
pendence of  character  is  better  than  riches.  It  is  upon  this  tradi- 
tion of  our  earlier  times  that  our  salvation  now  depends.  Look 
forth  over  the  world  and  in  spite  of  the  increasing  comfort  alike 
of  the  few  and  the  multitude,  everywhere  the  duUi-ng  touch  of 
money-getting  has  tamed  men's  generous  impulses  and  there  has 
been  a  loss  of  that  virile  and  prodigal  nobility  of  spirit  that  made 
the  "old  Southern  gentleman"  before  he  became  grotesque,  the 
most  erect  man  that  we  have  bred. 

If  it  seems  absured  that  I  speak  here  against  the  perils  of 
wealth,  I  pray  you  remember  it  is  not  wealth  itself  you  have  to  fear 
any  more  than  it  is  from  actual  wealth  that  you  now  suffer;  but  it 
is  the  governing  habit  of  mind  that  puts  a  pecuniary  value  on  all 
things,  and  this  habit  of  mind  has  already  come.  Already  in  most 
of  our  new  towns  you  may  see  that  type  of  man  who,  after  devo- 
tion to  a  narrow  creed  for  several  generations  has  been  smitten  by 
prosperity  and  now  presents  the  spectacle  of  a  gilded  and  rancid 
self-righteousness.  So  the  danger  and  opportunity  that  now 
awaits  us  are  the  opportunity  and  the  danger  of  our  industrial 
activity. 

The  North  Carolinian  of  the  past  we  know;  we  know,  too, 
the  North  Carolinian  of  the  present,  and  he  is  very  like  his  ances- 
tor. What  type  of  man  this  new  industrial  activity  is  going  to 
make  the  North  Corolinian  of  the  future  we  can  yet  only  guess, 
but  this  is  the  force  that  is  going  to  make  him.  Let  yours  be  the 
force  that  guides  him. 

To  guide  him  you  must  fall  into  line  with  him,  along  with  his 
activity  your  activity  must  be  felt. 

Now  while  an  intimate  connection  between  an  institution 
of  learning  and  the  industrial  activity  of  the  people  is  easy  to  talk 
about,  it  is  difficult  to  make.  What  is  there,  for  instance,  in  common 
between  your  young  men  whose  delight  is  reading  Horace  and  the 
busy  men  who  are  laying  the  foundation  of  fortunes  by  the  manu- 
facture of  tobacco  ?  What  can  there  be  in  common  between  an 
institution  whose  aim  it  is  to  introduce  men  to  the  clasBsics,  and 
the  activity  of  men  whose  aim  it  is  to  sell  town  lots  at  a  premium? 
Of  course,  in  a  general  way,  this  problem  has  to  be  met  by  every 


68      INA  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  WINSTON. 

institution  of  learning,  has  to  be  met,  indeed,  by  every  individual 
of  high  intellectual  inspiration. 

Nevertheless,  I  do  not  think  there  is  an  insurmountable  v^all 
between  these  two  kinds  of  activity,  because  University  life  has 
now  become  so  diverse.  It  is  simply  a  problem  of  adapting  one 
force  to  another  in  a  helpful  way  rather  than  in  hindering 
way,  although  I  may  seem  to  go  very  far  out  of  academic  paths. 
I  venture  to  point  out  one  direction  in  which  I  think  the  two 
forces  might  be  made  yoke-fellows,  and  that  of  course  is  in  a  line 
of  work  with  which  my  own  labors  happen  to  have  made  me 
familiar. 

You  have  now  here,  lying  all  about  you  in  the  every-day  life 
of  the  people,  facts  and  tendencies  that  are  the  crude  materials  of 
one  of  the  most  interesting  problems  of  this  century,  a  problem 
that  civilized  men  in  every  country  are  eagerly  watching;  a 
problem  about  which  students  of  social  science  everywhere  are 
making  speculations ;  a  problem  on  which  I  dare  say  you  could 
throw  more  light  than  has  yet  been  thrown  by  all  other  students 
put  together,  because  your  opportunities  are  greater  than  the 
opportunities  of  other  men. 

It  is  a  problem  in  social  development,  a  clear  statement  of 
which  would  bring  a  reputation  that  would  be  world  wide,  and 
the  University  by  taking  hold  on  it  would  put  men  overywhere 
under  obligations  to  you  and  give  the  institution  a  new  intellec- 
tual rating.  •  It  is  simply  this : 

What  is  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  living  and  working  together 
of  the  two  races  ? 

Time  long  enough  has  elapsed  since  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves  to  show  clearly  the  main  tendencies  that  point  to  further 
development,  and  yet,  except  for  a  few  facts  that  are  thrown  upon 
it  by  the  United  States  census,  there  is  everywhere  a  confusing 
mass  of  discussion,  everywhere  a  lack  of  exact  information. 
"Would  it  seem  to  you  too  revolutionary  a  proposition  if  I  were  to 
suggest  that  you  organize  a  seminarium  of  social  science  and  set 
your  eager  students  to  work  as  a  body  of  enquirers  to  gather  the 
facts  in  every  county  in  the  State  to  show  precisely  what  are  the 
relations  between  the  two  races,  and  in  what  respects  these  rela- 
tions have  changed  in  the  last  twenty-five  years?    If  a  company 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  WINSTON.      69 

of  twenty-five  or  thirty  energetic  young  men  were  to  go  forth,  one 
in  one  community  and  one  in  another,  every  one  equipped  with  a 
set  of  inquiries  upon  which  they  had  agreed  in  advance,  and  were 
to  gather  answers  to  these  inquiries  by  their  own  investigation, 
and  then  if  this  whole  mass  of  facts  were  brought  together  and 
properly  classified  and  properly  interpreted,  I  say  that  you  would 
have  a  piece  of  literature  on  an  important  subject  in  social  science 
that  would  be  read  and  welcomed  everywhere  that  studious  men 
live.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  this  would  be  difficult ;  for  there  is  not 
a  newspaper  in  the  State  that  would  not  feel  proud  to  aid  you, 
and  every  one  could  give  great  aid  by  opening  its  columns  for  you 
to  ask  questions,  and  you  might  have  a  volume  of  correspondence 
here  from  men,  black  and  white,  from  every  township  in  every 
county  in  this  State  even  before  your  next  commencement.  If  at 
your  next  commencement  instead  of  orations  on  abstract  subjects 
about  which  the  learning  of  youth  is  so  much  greater  than  the 
wisdom  of  manhood,  you  were  to  present  the  results  of  original 
investigations,  I  venture  the  prediction  that  there  will  be  nothing 
published  from  any  institution  of  learning  in  the  United  States 
this  year  that  will  be  more  interesting  than  of  what  you  would 
put  forth.  I  am  sure,  too,  that  the  rigid  training  which  may  be 
got  from  the  collection  and  handling  of  a  large  body  of  vital  facts 
like  this  would  be  quite  equal  as  an  intellectual  exercise  to  the 
training  that  is  got  in  class  rooms. 

But  the  main  point  is  not  simply  that  you  would  have  achieved 
something  worth  the  doing  and  that  you  would  be  doing  good 
training  work  also,  but  more  important  than  these  is  this:  that 
by  such  work  you  would  be  sure  to  arouse  every  man  who  ever 
thinks,  from  one  end  of  the  State  to  the  other,  in  your  institution 
and  in  your  work ;  and  many  an  old  man  who  follows  his  bullock 
over  his  field  of  new  ground  to  grow  his  little  store  of  grain  and 
has  wondered  whether  the  negro  will  always  be  the  negro  that  he 
is,  would  have  his  attention  arrested  by  the  fact  that  the  Univer- 
sity of  all  things  in  the  world,  was  trying  to  solve  and  find  out 
facts  about  which  he  too  had  given  serious  thought.  He  would 
have  a  profounder  regard  for  University  than  he  had  ever  had, 
and  it  might  occur  to  him  that  it  might  benefit  his  son.  If  you 
once  got  the  interest  of  the  common  people  aroused  in  your  insti- 


70      INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  WINSTON. 

tution  in  such  logical  and  natural  ways  as  this,  by  creating  a  unity 
of  interests  and  a  unity  of  aims  with  the  people,  I  think  the  day 
will  soon  come  when  your  President  would  not  have  to  wait  on 
the  legislature  to  secure  an  appropriation  large  enough  to  meet 
your  expenses.  It  would  be  only  a  question  to  submit  to  a  tax 
and  a  constantly  increasing  tax,  if  necessary,  to  perpetuate  and  to 
make  broader  the  institute  that  reflects  glory  on  the  State  and 
gives  him  food  for  his  own  thought  to  grow  on. 

This,  of  course,  is  but  one  little  suggestion  along  one  line  of 
work,  and  out  of  your  fertility  and  the  fertility  of  your  faculty 
suggestions  along  many  lines  worth  many  times  more  than  this 
will  come.  The  single  hint  that  I  would  drop  is  this,  that  in  pro- 
portion as  you  lay  hold  on  present  conditions  and  show  yourself 
interested  in  those  things  in  which  the  people  are  themselves 
interested,  you  will  place  yourselves  in  a  position  where  you  can 
question  and  shape  them,  building  up  and  balanciug  their  thoughts. 

So  that  when  I  said  you  are  happy  in  having  a  clear  duty, 
before  you,  I  meant  that  you  have  not  to  face  the  perplexing 
questions  of  a  complex  culture,  but  a  simple  and  primary  task, 
fundamental,  secondary  to  none,  and  more  useful  than  mere  aca- 
demic task,  and  when  I  said  that  this  clear  duty  leads  to  a  great 
opportunity,  I  meant  the  opportunity  of  doing  the  noblest  and 
highest  democratic  work,  the  intellectual  awakening  of  the  whole 
people  whose  traditions  you  have  perpetuated  aud  whose  love  you 
hold — a  task  that  owing  to  the  peculiar  stage  of  their  development 
and  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  hindering,  all  the  world  will 
watch  with  interest ;  and  that  the  builders  of  commonwealths  well 
might  envy  you. 

As  we  take  up  this  task,  we  that  look  forward,  (if  I  have 
earned  a  right  to  speak  for  them  that  look  forward)  beg  to  remind 
you,  not  in  a  spirit  of  admonition  but  in  the  spirit  of  work-fellow- 
ship, that  there  is  but  one  courage  and  that  is  the  courage  of 
truth,  because  there  is  but  one  victory  and  that  is  the  victory  of 
truth,  which  is  the  invincible  voice  of  God.    This  is  our  token. 

In  consecrating  yourself  to  this,  therefore,  swear  that  the  day 
of  compromises  is  done !  To  every  mendicant  tradition  that  shall 
ask  favors  of  you;  to  every  narrow  ecclesiastical  prejudice  that 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  WINSTON.      71 

shall  demand  tribute ;  most  of  all  to  the  colossal  inertia  that  you 
inherit  in  whatever  forms  they  come,  in  whatever  guises  they 
present  themselves — to  them  all  say  with  kindness  but  with  firm- 
ness: 

Go  honored,  hence,  go  home 
Night's  childless  children:    here  your  day  is  done, 
Pass  with  the  stars  and  leave  us 
With  the  sun. 


AUTUMN. 

BY   RICHARD   WTCHE. 

Ther's  a  sadness  in  the  air. 
Leaves  are  falling  everywhere 
In  the  grove, 
Down  the  lane. 


All  the  night  and  all  the  day 
Frosty  fingers  work  away, 
Stripping  trees 
Of  their  leaves. 


72  NORTH  CAROLINA  NEWSPAPERS. 


COUNTEY  NEWSPAPERS  IN  NOETH  CAEOLINA. 

In  the  September  number  of  the  Century,  E.  M.  Howe,  a  wes- 
tern journalist,  has  an  article  entitled  "Country  Newspapers,"  in 
which,  in  a  manner  true  to  the  life  and  humorous,  he  tells  of 
country  papers,  as  he  has  found  them.  With  some  few  exceptions, 
Mr.  Howe's  descriptions  apply  to  the  rural  periodicals  of  North 
Carolina  very  forcibly. 

The  soil  of  North  Carolina  is  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  growth 
and  flourishing  of  country  newspapers.  Our  State  is  without  large 
cities.  Wilmington,  our  biggest  town,  with  its  23,000  inhabitants, 
is  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  not  a  city.  North  Carolina  is 
the  provincial  State  of  the  Union,  and  the  only  one,  excepting 
probably  some  new  western  states,  that  has  no  city  of  50,000  or 
100,000  inhabitants.  Consequently  she  is  a  State  of  weeklies. 
Every  one  of  her  96  county  seats  has  two.  It  is  not  risking 
anything  to  make  this  statement,  for  country  newspapers  go  in 
pairs,  dividing  the  patronage  of  their  territoy  or  "field"  which, 
while  it  would  furnish  a  "good  living"  to  the  editor  of  one  paper, 
thus  necessarily  inflicts  two  poor  editors  upon  the  community. 

I  believe  Nortn  Carolina  has  better  country  editors  and  news- 
papers than  other  states.  Perhaps  the  very  fact  of  its  being  a 
more  or  less  provincial  State,  has  something  to  do  with  this.  Not 
having  any  great  city  to  supply  her  with  a  great  daily,  which  her 
citizens  may  swear  by,  as  Virginians  do  by  the  Eichmond  Dis- 
patch, South  Carolinaus  by  the  Charleston  News-and-Courier,  and 
Georgians  by  the  Atlanta  Constitution,  it  is  incumbent  upon  North 
Carolina's  country  editors  to  exert  themselves  all  the  more  to  sup- 
ply this  want  and  to  give  their  subscribers  a  country  newspaper 
somewhat  above  the  average. 

Perhaps  another  thing  that  goes  to  give  this  State  good  edi- 
tors is  the  mutual  discussion  as  to  how  to  improve  their  papers, 
by  the  members  of  the  State  Press  Association,  as  they  annually 
meet  in  convention.  The  papers  read  in  these  conventions  are 
often  found  to  reveal  depth  of  thought,  convincing  argument  and 
at  times  a  sparkling  wit. 


